‘Oh, I fear the idea is in his head,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘_That_ idea never fails to get into their heads. If it was an arrangement everybody approved, and that we were moving heaven and earth to bring about, then indeed--but the moment it becomes undesirable, a trouble, an annoyance! I am sure when you see him, that you will easily find what it is best to say. And I shall be so grateful,’ she cried, giving him an affectionate glance, ‘for, Mr. Cattley, I know you will be very considerate; you will say nothing to wound his feelings.’ ‘Nothing more than is necessary. You don’t suppose things like this can be said without hurting the feelings,’ said the curate. ‘Poor boy,’ he added, after a moment, ‘I would do a great deal to get him his wishes. It seems hard that I should be the one to say he’s not to have them.’ ‘But you approve? You see there is nothing else to be done: you agree with me that it would be impossible to let it go on? I am sure, whoever else may misconceive my meaning, you understand,’ Mrs. Egerton said, with a sudden little pressure of her hand upon his arm. He looked at her with a kind of appeal in his eyes. ‘I think I understand,’ he said, ‘and I approve, too, in a kind of way. But you will be kind? You will not push it too far?’ ‘I hope I am not unkind,’ Mrs. Egerton said. Thus it was that Mr. Cattley went, in the afternoon of the day following Susie’s arrival, to the old house of the Sandfords. He went somewhat against the grain; but yet there was sufficient justice in the commission given him. He thought with a little sigh how entirely natural and appropriate it would be that John should love Elly, and Elly John. If it was so, they would be delivered at once, in the happiness and harmony of nature, from all the constraints which distracted life. He himself had loved, if he had ever ventured to think so, amiss. He had given his affections to a woman entirely out of his sphere, of a different development, almost of a different generation. Any idea of marrying her, of a house made bright by her love, had never been possible. Many moments of a happiness very sweet, though always subdued, he had no doubt possessed. She had been if impossible as a wife, yet his dearest friend, his frequent companion, and his years had passed very sweetly by her side. But if it had chanced to him in his youth, like John, to love somebody of his own age, somebody within his reach! If _she_ had been young, like Elly, and fancy-free when he was as John! He sighed to think how many embarrassments, how many self-denials those two young creatures would escape in the love which had no complications in it. And then he recollected, with a shock, that he was going to put a stop to this love, that he was going as the accepted messenger of family pride and importance, of the difference between the rector’s daughter and an obscure young man whose pedigree would not bear examination. Mr.